asked him to accompany him in his visit to the hospital. He consented, and stood by the bed of the sufferers. Here lay the hope and joy of some family cut off in his gay prime; there, some gallant youth mutilated for life. And all this sorrow and suffering was like water poured upon the sand, useless and in vain! Suddenly his attention was attracted by a groan of pain. In a bed at some distance up the room, he saw a young man apparently delirious from great physical and mental torture. His eyes were closed, his cheek white, his face distorted by suffering. But marred as was the beauty of that noble face, enough remained for Andrea to recognise Ernesto. And thus, on the second anniversary of their promised day of meeting (after a brief but momentous interval) the friends met again.

The surgeons approached the bed; Andrea, sick at heart, leant for support against the wall.

The arm is considerably worse,' they said. There is no remedy; amputation must take place.'

Through all the wandering of a fevered brain the patient heard and understood his doom. He started up. No, no! not my right armmy sword arm; let me die rather.' He opened his eyes, and their wild dilated glance fell on and seemed to recognise Andrea. Andrea, is this your revenge?' and he sank back as if shot.

'Allow me to examine the arm,' said Andrea, in a low voice; and he approached the bed. He was pale as death; the big drops of agitation stood on his brow, but he examined the arm with professional coolness. After a minute and careful examination, he differed in opinion from the surgeons, and rapidly but forcibly expressed his reasons. There was some demur; it was a question of life and death; if the inflammation extended to the shoulder, it would be too late to take off the arm, and death must ensue. Every means used hitherto to subdue the inflammation had failed. Andrea was aware of this, but considered that by means of a very delicate operation which he suggested, the stress on the muscles might be relieved, and the pain decreased so as to

permit rest and sleep. They shook their heads, but consented that it should be tried.

With one of those supreme efforts of which great natures alone are capable, Andrea mastered his emotion. All was ready. He performed the operation with marvellous skill.

'Your arm is saved, signor,' said the surgeon.

'Thank God!' exclaimed Ernesto; and as he sunk back upon his pillow, Andrea heard him murmur

Viva Italia!' When Andrea returned to the hospital ten days afterwards he was too fearful of the consequences of agitation to make himself known to the patient earlier he found that Ernesto had left it, and there was no trace by which he could be sought. Some thought that, ill and weak as he still was, he had returned to Florence; some, that he had gone to England or the United States.

CHAPTER III-1856.

Seven years more had passed away. The reaction which had followed the transient gleam of liberty was slowly dying away. All things find their level at last. In the great ebb and tide of the sea of human affairs certain landmarks are slowly won, and the most furious storm can but cover them for a time.

Piedmont, by slow and temperate progress, by harmonious union between rulers and ruled, had advanced. She had won a place and a stake in European counsels. Cavour had raised his voice in the Congress of Nations for Italy. The material effect of such an appeal may be null; the moral influence must be immense.

It was the anniversary of the day of meeting. Andrea Peruzzi sate with his English wife on the terrace of his villa at Santa Chiara. He had been married five years. Two rosy, healthy-looking children played near them with their nurse, dressed in the picturesque costume of the place. The baby slept in its mother's arms.

These five years had added a deeper gravity to Andrea's brow. It was not sad, but a serious earnestness was his prevailing expression.

His smile was more rare, but as sweet and genial as of old. His wife worshipped him, and he loved her with that holy tenderness with which a good man loves the best blessing God has bestowed on him. She was a Catholic, and this sympathy of creed was a strong bond between her and her husband's tenantry. They could not look upon her as a forestiera when they saw her kneeling before their shrines. Highly educated and intelligent, she assisted her husband in all his schemes for ameliorating the condition of the people, and for the improvement of the estate. In compliance with his wishes, many changes for the better were made in the houses of the peasants, and in the management of their children. Andrea, at his own expense, had sent several of the most intelligent youths in the neighbourhood to England and to France to learn the latest improvements in their respective trades. Two had returned with English wives, and repeated on a smaller scale the social and household experiments essayed by Andrea and his wife.

Peruzzi had a strong faith in the good which might arise from intermarriage between different races, and hence he derived some degree of consolation under the bitter sorrow of witnessing the foreign occupation which weighed upon the fand.

'Twenty years hence,' he would say, from the alliances between Tuscans and Austrians, French and Romans, a race will spring up modified in some hereditary attributes, and consequently improved. And what are twenty years in the future of a people ?'

Andrea was not Utopian in his views. He knew that some of his schemes must fail or be thwarted, but he persevered. Baffled, not defeated, he would, disappointed on one side, turn to some fresh enterprise in which he saw an opening for native industry, or an outlet for native produce. He limited his personal expenditure to the barest necessaries, but was lavish of his resources where he could aid the material improvement of his country.

Railroads, electric telegraphs, all

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public works which extended the commercial relations of Italy, received his support. Above all he devoted himself to agriculture. Rarely, in the rudest climes, is the earth ungrateful for the care and labour bestowed upon it; but perhaps no one who has not witnessed it, can appreciate, or even imagine, its bounteous and beneficent fertility in Tuscany. That part especially which hems the Mediterranean, called the Maremma, is wonderful in its produce. An association of British farmers and labourers, in the district called Massa Maritima, to distinguish it from Massa di Carrara, would convert the land into a paradise.

Such was Andrea's life; a laborious one, it is true; but singleness of purpose and strength of will command success. These he possessed in no ordinary degree, and he might be termed successful and prosperous beyond the generality of men.

Yet was there mourning in his soul. In a profound and retentive nature such as his it takes long to scar over a wound. Andrea could not forget Ernesto. Where was that wayward yet beloved friend?

Gaetano and Francisco, who often came to see him, united their inquiries with his, but since he had left the hospital at Leghorn all trace had been lost. Gaetano was more and more absorbed in his art, and more and more estranged from the living world around. Francisco banished himself entirely from it, and led the life of an ascetic; but both held unchanged one feeling-their friendship for Andrea; both cherished one regret-their grief for the lost Ernesto. The Marchesa was still unmarried, still admired, but lived entirely in the country.

As Andrea thus sate on the ter race that Midsummer evening, the associations of the day carried back his thoughts to the past. The English newspaper in his hand was unheeded. His eyes wandered carelessly over the landscape spread before him. And yet how lovely it was! On the right a broad belt of verdure spread to the foot of the bare and lofty mountains, on the left the fertile plains sloped to the sea. Long stretches of golden light made manifest the rich crops of

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corn; the vines looped their grace ful festoons from tree to tree; and the olives, in blue and misty-looking clusters, softened the glowing hues of the distance. It was one of those scenes of smiling plenty which fill the heart with thankfulness to God.

Thou openest Thy hand, and fillest all things living with plenteousness."

There are times when we all look back upon our lives with a tender melancholy to the life which has been a success without pride-to the life which has been a failure without humiliation. When we feel, beside the eternal progress which is the law of nature, our done or undone is at the best or worst but trivial. While what we are whether life has been a discipline to us in its triumphs or trials seems the only question of magnitude. It is well such moods should not be frequent, for they might tend with some to paralyze effort; but it is good that they should occur at times. They soften and purify the hearts of the prosperous, they soothe and comfort those who, looking back upon baffled efforts, defeated purposes, and blighted hopes, have felt that, as regards their soul's probation, disappointment has been more precious than victory, for it has achieved submission-patience-faith.

And ever, as Andrea's thoughts took a tenderer shade, they turned to Ernesto. He sometimes thought he must have died in his self-sought exile. It seemed impossible for that generous though wayward heart to maintain this stern silence if it still throbbed among the living.

Absorbed in these reflections, Andrea did not notice or even hear the quick advance of a carriage which drove up the avenue to the front of the house. It stopped, two men jumped out, and then assisted a third to alight.

Is the Signor Peruzzi within ?" "Si, signor.'

They passed on to the terrace. Andrea sat with his head buried in his hands. The sound of approach. ing footsteps made him look up. Gaetano-Francisco-welcome, -oh, heavens !'

He had caught sight of another. Was that pale emaciated being who

"Andrea! One more anniversary, the last; I yearned to die here, with you.'

The last! Andrea could not speak. That strong calm spirit was thoroughly mastered and overcome. He wept as a child over the long-lost friend recovered, but recovered only for a moment. It did not need his skill to see that the shadow of death was on that wasted but still beautiful face.

At length, when all had a little controlled their agitation, explanations were interchanged. Ernesto was placed on a sofa, and with Andrea's hand in his, told all that had passed since he left the hospital at Leghorn. The glimpse of Andrea on the day of the operation he attributed, naturally enough, to a delusion of his fevered brain. He had asked no questions, and no one spoke to him. The moment he felt able to move he embarked for England. It was perilous for him to remain in Italy, and Italy to him was a charnel-house. Every thought connected with it was a torture and a shame. The fear of farther compromising his friends, Gaetano and Francisco, deterred him from bidding them farewell.

'As to you, Andrea, I would rather have died than have met you face to face. How I afterwards became aware of my groundless and cruel jealousy, of the unexampled ingratitude of my conduct towards you, I need not relate. She wrote to me, and told me all!' He sighed deeply, and tears filled his eyes. Poor Beatrice! I went to England,' continued Ernesto, 'and for a time all the Italians I met or associated with confirmed my own views. Distrust of Piedmont, faith in secret societies, in revolt, or rather in proclamations of revolt, formed their creed: exhortation to use the dagger if the sword failed, was their watchword. In their quiet libraries they mystified and dazzled themselves with classic reminiscences, till they lost all the actual proportions of things.

'Murder, to obtain any end whatever, is-setting aside its criminality

Each had a different system, which was to be realized in Italy, and be the universal remedy for every evil.

'During the first winter I was in England, partly to occupy myself, partly to satisfy the home thirst which was preying on my very life, I resolved to write a history of the events in which I had taken part. Collecting and combining information for my task led me to a close observation and comparison of the men with whom I had mixed, and the circumstances around them. I slowly awoke to my mistake. I had misdirected my efforts for Italy, and I had no other life to give her. The climate, the sedentary life, exhaustion. from my wounds, did their work, all told on me; but I would not die till I had seen you, Andrea, and completed my history. It is finished. You will find it with my papers-a faithful record. I have related all the unparalleled heroism displayed, also the imprudence which marred it. It may be of use to guide and restrain others as self-willed and as erring as I was. For me, and those who have sacrificed their lives as vainly, what hope remains but to make our Italy greener with our graves?

Speak not so, Ernesto,' said Andrea, in a voice broken by sobs.

Put your arm around me, Andrea,' said Ernesto; 'believe me,

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except for that brief time of passion, no one have I loved as I love you. Italy and Andrea are written on my heart. Raise me, and let me once more see the sky I have so often thought of during my exile.'

They drew the curtains, and he looked out. The pomp and splendour of the breathless midsummer night were in the sky. Opposite the piled clouds, behind which the sun had sunk in solemn majesty, the moon shone radiant and serene. Fire-flies, like winged stars, were hovering and glittering among the flowers and trees; a nightingale was pouring forth her passionate and melodious grief, and filling the silence with song. It seemed a night elected and set apart for some great consecration.

Ernesto's large eyes, still bright through the film of approaching death, gazed with a mournful intensity upon the scene, as if he would have sought to blend with the elements of beauty around, or to carry away the record for ever in his soul.

'How beautiful!' he murmured, 'but it is night-and night, too, with thee, my country.-Alas, my Italy!'

"There is hope for Italy, Ernesto,' said Andrea, while his tears rained over the hand he held; believe it, the dawn will come for our Italy also the day will arise, and Italy be great.'

God alone is great,' said the solemn voice of Francisco, as he sank on his knees beside his friend, and commenced the offices of the church.

Vainly for Ernesto.

Ernesto Morosini had breathed his last sigh with the name of Italy on his lips.

Alas! my Italy!'